Rainbow Mountain Hike, Peru
Rainbow Mountain is one of the most popular hikes near Cusco.
Rainbow Mountain is nestled near the mountainous Ausangate area, about 3hrs from Cusco by road. Rainbow Mountain’s ease of access and facilities such as toilets cater directly to the masses that arrive in Cusco to visit Machu Picchu. These factors, along with a unique view to boot, undoubtedly contribute to making Rainbow Mountain one of Peru’s most popular day hikes. On almost every street in the center of Cusco, you’ll probably find at least one tour operator selling tours to Rainbow Mountain. Simply walk in as late as the day before, book, and you’re good to go. Easy!
Rainbow Mountain at a glance
Altitude: 4500m to 5000m
Distance: 10km out and back
My Duration: 2.25hrs up (faster on the way down)
Distance to trailhead from Cusco: 3hrs
Well worn trail: Yes
You’ve seen the photos – like a Napoleon cake, layers upon layers but turned on its side and no deliciousness to be had. Chances are you’ve already googled “Rainbow Mountain” and seen all sorts of whacky unreal colours. To dispel any myths, it will look like the photo above – brown with stripes of chalk green and yellow. This is as natural as it gets. If it’s an overcast day then it will probably be a bit duller. If it’s snowing it’s just going to look white, so be sure to check the weather. If you’ve picked up a brochure with a photo of a van in front of the mountain thinking you can just drive there, bad luck lazy ass, the only way to get there is to hike.
Booking a tour in Cusco is the most common way to get there and they provide bus or minivan transport there and back. Budget tours are around 80 Sol which is what I paid (AU$34). High-end tours start at around 270 Sol but can cost twice that. There is an additional 10 Sol for park entry.
With the entire trek above 4500m and culminating with an altitude of a staggering 5000m, this hike will really test how your body performs at high altitude. While the vertical gain isn’t that much (500m) the fact that the entire hike is above 4500m (it’s higher than Cusco and higher than any Machu Picchu trek), combined with the preparation people do for this hike (or rather lack thereof) is what makes it hard.
Acclimatising in Cusco
Given that all sorts of people fly in from all over the world to see the world-renowned Machu Picchu, you probably also have tons of people that have no clue what acclimatisation is until now. If you don’t know what it is, be sure to read my post on it here.
Typically people will recommend about two days to acclimatise to high altitude. Everybody is different so it could be shorter, it could be longer. Assuming you haven’t already done so elsewhere in your travels recently, your body will immediately do this upon arriving at Cusco (3399m) by simply being at that altitude. As such, to get the most of your time, rather than sitting around doing nothing, you can go on tours to the Sacred Valley during these 2 days prior to any hiking, whether it’s to Machu Picchu or to Rainbow Mountain. On Sacred Valley tours, typically you will be driven everywhere with only a short walk at your destination, so it’s not too taxing on your body.
Problems can arise if you decide to skip these 2 days of acclimatisation and people do skip them despite reading everywhere that you shouldn’t. Just to be sure, I recommend that you don’t skip acclimatisation for health and safety reasons. Why might people do this anyway? Well, firstly people generally have a limited amount of time to travel in so they cut back on things they deem as “optional”. This coupled with the fact that tour providers are going to want to sell you a tour regardless doesn’t help. Competition seems pretty fierce in Cusco so they will want your business.
Hike day – Rainbow Mountain
With the day starting at an unworldly 03:00 to 04:00 the struggle begins well before you even reach the mountain. Maybe you’re the type of person that can sleep anywhere and can get some extra z’s on the bus, but that’s not me. If you’re the same as me then you can add ‘lack of sleep’ to the list of things that make this hike hard.
There’s a breakfast stop but don’t expect anything flash, just typical tour food. You will likely stop back at the same place for lunch on the return trip.
Arriving at Rainbow Mountain
Upon disembarking from the bus, you’ll immediately notice, asides from all the other buses in the huge parking lot, a bunch of donkeys/horses. As you hike up and down Rainbow Mountain you’ll see even more. Basically, these are for hire – typical customers are anyone who falls prey to acclimatisation issues or gets injured. Don’t expect them to come cheap (around US$35), especially if you really look like you’re struggling. The locals that walk the donkeys up and down the hill all day every day aren’t exactly doing it out of the kindness of their heart, this is how they make a living.
At the start, you can also buy some last-minute or emergency things such as water and toilet paper (thank f*ck).
The first 1.5km is rather flat but enjoy it while it lasts, the remaining 3.5km is a steady slog uphill.
There are actually a bunch of toilets (some for a small fee, some free) strewn all along the trail. Some of these have your regular ceramic toilets, others are portaloos. They are about as clean as one can expect from a toilet in the middle of nowhere and don’t expect running water.
It was also about here I started to feel sick in my stomach. I dunno what it was… maybe it was that piece of fruit I ate? Maybe it was breakfast? Maybe it was the altitude? Maybe a combination of everything? Whatever it was it would manifest very soon 🤢
What to wear – Rainbow Mountain
As you can see from how people are dressed, it’s pretty cold. As always, dress in layers so you can peel layers off as you get hot and put layers on when you’re cold, especially when you’re not moving much such as at the top. My standard alpine packing list will suffice.
I’m always going to recommend hiking boots or hiking shoes for any hike or trek I write about here. If you can afford to fly all the way to Peru you can afford to buy a decent pair of hiking boots/shoes. Not only will your feet thank you, but they will also help prevent injuries especially in more terrible weather which can be unpredictable in this region.
Trekking poles are optional and I think they are a great invention. I’ve met people that prefer not to use them who can hike faster than me, so it’s a personal preference on whether you want to use them or not. In any case, if you didn’t bring trekking poles from home, you can buy adjustable height aluminum ones for cheap in Cusco. They’ll cost about the same amount as it does to rent branded trekking poles. They aren’t bad and will get the job done. Check Calle Plateros off the Cusco Plaza de Armas and keep an eye out for a stash of red, blue or white poles in the shops. You can also buy branded ones in stores like Tatoo Adventure Gear on Calle Espinar one block away from Plaza de Armas, but don’t expect options and don’t expect them to be cheap.
While toilets are throughout the Rainbow Mountain hike, some can be a good 20 to 30 minutes apart. If you’re caught in between and have no way to make it, what is one to do you might ask? Looking at the photos there’s not a whole lot of places you can go – it’s largely a wide-open valley with nothing to block the view! I’d also imagine there is a “no polluting this space” policy but if you gotta go you gotta go…
Let’s just say, if you’re starting at the same trailhead, then higher up there are some hills to the right which can obstruct the views…
While Rainbow Mountain is the main attraction, that’s not to say there aren’t other views. My geologist friend would love seeing this.
The crowds – Rainbow Mountain
Unless you’ve got your own transport and leave waaaay before the regular tours do i.e. earlier than 03:00, you’re not going to beat the crowds. Even if you think you can hike up the fastest, there could already be another busload that has arrived before you.
It’s quite possible to get right in front of Rainbow Mountain where a rock wall marks the boundary but don’t expect to get much time (if at all) without anyone jumping beside you and ruining your photo. If you’re wondering, my featured photo has simply been cropped creatively to exclude the hoards of people you see here.
The Top – Rainbow Mountain Hike
What a nightmare.
The crowds, the smells and the sounds. As soon as I got up there I just wanted to leave.
Crowds are just never fun. As for smells, some local brought a makeshift kitchen up to the top and started cooking food you could buy. I don’t know what he was cooking but whatever meat it was it just made me feel even more nauseous than I already was. The sounds? Another local thought it would be a great idea to play some instrument at the top. When you’re feeling sick and there is a sound you hate, all you want to do is shove whatever is making that noise up their ass.
It’s worth mentioning, I hadn’t seen our guide since the start of the hike until now. I mean it’s not like you could get lost, just follow the stream of people. But if you were expecting more then you might want to go with a high-end operator or go on a private tour. Come to think of it, the same could be said for pretty much all cheap tours from Cusco – don’t expect much. It’s best to think of all cheap Cusco tours as just transportation and anything extra you get is a bonus.
After a bit, our guide gathered up our group, at least as many as he could find. He proceeded to talk about the history adding some semblance of a tour for us. However being sick, I just wanted it to stop.
About 10 minutes at the top, I couldn’t take it anymore and told him I would head back down. He said to meet at the bus so down I went.
The Best Viewpoints at Rainbow Mountain
A photo in front of the rainbow-colored mountain is probably what you came here for.
There are actually 2 viewpoints at the top. The first one is where everyone is and the one you see in photos in this post. While up close and personal, this is probably the least impressive viewpoint.
The second is opposite the rainbowy mountain North about 150m away. This is higher up and has a 360 degree view of the entire area. I didn’t go up there (and thus don’t have a shot from there) since I didn’t know it existed at the time but looking at photos, it’s one hell of a view. It might be further away but being higher up, you can also take Rainbow Mountain photos from up there and exclude the hoards at the first lookout with a few tweaks of your camera angle and/or settings.
Down from Rainbow Mountain
Heading down is much easier than heading up but I was feeling like sh*t and walking as slow as a snail (it might seem like I wasn’t that sick but to spare you gross details I’m excluding a lot of it). At some point I ran out of water and I took at least 2L. 2L would normally be enough for me but being sick didn’t help. Fortunately, someone saw that I was struggling and gave me some.
Those donkeys were looking pretty good right about now but I wasn’t about to ride one. The cost and the shame.
Note: If you’re seriously sick or injured then don’t hesitate to ride the donkey.
I eventually made it back to the start and went on the wrong bus. Not recognising some faces I promptly got off. A good tip is to take a photo of your bus including the licence plate number – a lot of the destinations around Cusco have tons of travellers and tons of buses transporting them. You might think your guide will “guide” you back to the bus and my situation was because I left early, but around Cusco, meeting at the bus is the norm. On a different tour, let’s call it the tour from hell, a group of 4 elderly people were on my bus – I never saw them again! That however is a story for another time.
The bus ride back to Cusco was another 3hrs. At this point I had taken max dosage of all the medication I had on me. A small medkit is something I always carry with me while hiking and it’s times like this you are glad you packed one. There was a break at the same place we stopped off at on the way, but it wasn’t before the bus stopped for a good 20 minutes for some unknown reason – I think waiting for someone?? When you just want to get back to your accommodation the shortest moments can feel like hours. I thought I’d be screwed but eventually, I did get back to Cusco and spent a few extra nights there just to recover. My next stop was Arequipa via bus and I didn’t want to risk taking an even longer bus ride…
Rainbow Mountain Final Thoughts
Sickness aside, Rainbow Mountain felt very so so. Maybe if I made it up to the higher 360 degree lookout I might have a different opinion? Maybe if I didn’t do it after my Machu Picchu trek? Then again there are those out there who love this hike. After all, it does give you a taste of what a longer trek might be like in Peru, and reaching the top is no easy feat – there would be a sense of accomplishment for a lot of people.
Rainbow Mountain being easily accessible from Cusco means that this hike is extremely popular as people heading to Machu Picchu look for day trips to do around Cusco. Not everyone wants to deal with logistical problems and Rainbow Mountain caters nicely to people who simply want an easy time getting to the trailhead.
Unfortunately, being popular also leads to crowds and crowds are definitely a detractor to any hike or trek. In fact, looking down the opposite side of the mountain, it looks like there is another trailhead which tells me that what I saw on my side of the mountain was really half of the total number of people heading to Rainbow Mountain for the day! As mentioned earlier you could beat the crowd if you have your own transportation but the vast majority of people are not going to bother organising it and waking up even earlier than 03:00. With that said, a huge saving grace is that the path is wide and you can overtake at almost any part of the hike.
If you’re a hiker or you want to get into it, you’re probably doing this hike regardless of what I’m writing here anyway. There’s not a whole lot of 1-day hike options around Cusco and maybe you’re looking for any kind of practice for why you really came to Cusco in the first place – Machu Picchu.
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